RE: First Class recapitulation
Great stuff and a potent translation - good work Frank! But the conundrum remains: Steiner may have talked about initiation exhaustively but he never actually preformed the critical role of conferring initiation on anyone - did he? Without that, he was in the position of asking people to "lift themselves by their bootstraps" by thinking about it. I think the evidence that there have been no successor initiates in the Society indicates that the living stream of initiation did not survive in that form of organization. Of course it does exist but it flowed elsewhere. the question is, as it always is: Where does it exist now?
Stephen Clarke
USA
RE: The Rub
Hi Frank,
Thanks for the access to your on-line knowledge. Just a quick comment on your article 'The Rub. It seems that Dr. Steiner was teaching knowledge that was later confirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls...and the Nag Hammedi library...Presumably he was accessing this information clairevoyantly.
Thanks again for sharing your publications.
jacqueline,
Scotland
"The Rub" is especially powerful. My recent immersion was in the works of Plotinus, the Platonic philosopher. It seemed precisely like a description of divine experience and a map of the journey. I found it to be nearly indistinguishable from Christian Esoteric themes and the themes of higher cognition elaborated by Rudolf Steiner.
In addition to the evocative and rich imagery in "The Rub," there's a natural voice that a lot of literary artists consider to be paramount in good writing. From this foundation, you transition nicely to the modern crises of what it means to live in the world now. We do have the heritage of Plotinus and Rudolf Steiner, where there's plenty of information about the problem and its solution. But, as Ann Jones so aptly describes in her essay on Veblen, in our current political economic and spiritual structure, there's little time or energy for most people to think, meditate and "know thyself."
Further complicating a structural solution (such as Social Three Folding and UBI), human history is replete with the fact that there are people who will do monstrous things for power and money. These same people want to enslave and oppress as food for the Ego. Some seem to embrace this philosophy in a manner that transcends lifetimes, suggesting knowledge of repeated earth lives and the like.
The story of Christ Jesus is remarkable in it's elucidation of this problem of being in this world; especially, at this time. And, a consideration of the meaning of faith, in the context of that story, need not lead us to concepts of blind acceptance, without personal experience. Michael Polanyi has a great work of epistemology called, Personal Knowledge. He was a scientist, and in this work puts personal warmth in the conception of science and knowledge. I find Jung's notions of faith and science to be weak.
It's exciting that your spiritual experience, as described in The Rub, is intertwined with conceptions of epistemology and with the current human crises. I assert that it will be new spiritual gifts and leadership that will provide some healing and liberation. I picture it as bringing some gifts, manifesting some good life force in this bad, bad place. "The Rub" is just such a gift. A remarkable woman, Grace H. Turnbull, published "The Essence of Plotinus." She and it are work a look.
Dan Morgen
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